Drawing the Lines
by moonlighten
Summary: Aaron and Robert attempt to break their soulbond. [Part 5 of the Journey Beyond soulmate AU series. Sequel to 'The Journey Beyond', 'Finding Your Way' and 'A Practical Guide'. Four chapters; complete.]
1. Chapter 1

Aaron had obviously been using his own personal, contrarian definition of 'together' the last time they spoke – one that translated to 'staying as far apart as it's possible for two people to get when they live in a village roughly the size of a postage stamp' – because for the next four days, Robert doesn't catch so much as a glimpse of him.

Even the bond is subdued, faded away to a slight, tickling pressure that bears down against the back of Robert's eyes like a trapped sneeze, and he begins to think that Aaron might have up sticks and moved away without telling him, after all.

On the morning of the fifth day, however, he receives a tersely mysterious text from Aaron that tells him nothing more than a place and time. Noon at the pub.

It's close enough to a summons that he almost feels obliged to be indignant over the presumption of it, if only for a few minutes before allowing himself to be intrigued, wondering if it had been prompted by Aaron discovering some method of severing their bond during his ghost-like absence from village life.

If he has, then the solution is far more prosaic than the one Robert had been imagining. Given the nature of the bond, he would have expected at least something in the way of arcane accoutrements – clouds of incense, chanting, perhaps a priest with brimstone eyes clutching a Bible – but when he arrives at the Woolpack at the appointed time, there's only Aaron, seated at the furthest point possible from both the one other occupied table and the bar, two full pints and a folded copy of that day's _Hotten Courier_ laid out on the table in front of him.

Robert sits in the chair set opposite him when Aaron invites him to do so with a curt nod of his head, and then asks, "So, what now?"

"Drink" – Aaron waves his hand towards one of the pints – "read" – towards the newspaper – "ignore me" – towards himself – "and, you know, try to ignore the other thing, too."

"That's it?" Robert asks. " _That's_ your grand plan?"

Aaron frowns. "It's _a_ plan," he says. "I never said it was grand. You got any better ideas?"

For reasons he has not cared to examine at all, never mind too closely, Robert has not given the matter even the most cursory of thoughts. "No," he admits, "but there must be _something_ else. You said yourself that ignoring it wasn't working. Not to mention that we've done this before and it didn't exactly help."

"I reckon it might work better if we're _both_ ignoring it. And it won't be like last time." Aaron narrows his eyes warningly. "No touching."

The possibility had never crossed Robert's mind. "Fair enough," he says. "It's worth a shot, I suppose."

He unfolds the paper as Aaron settles back, opening his own magazine. Today's front page features an expose on the deplorable state of the local roads, including a picture of a pothole that has been taken at angle that was doubtless carefully chosen in order to make it look like an unbridgeable chasm: a subject close enough to Robert's heart that he finds it engrossing for the thirty seconds or so it takes to read.

Thereafter, though, it's petty theft following petty theft following 'a day in the life of father and son dry wallers'; nothing that can hold sufficient of his interest that he can tune out the bond, which is currently twanging in a slightly ominous minor key.

Against Aaron's orders, he looks around the pub in search of another means of distraction.

Vic had emerged from the kitchen whilst he was mildly diverted by the paper, and is standing behind the bar, her elbows propped on top of it, and watching them with a faint, puzzled smile. When their gazes meet, she dips and raises her eyebrows at him in a complex, semaphoric pattern which clearly signals that she's both reading entirely too much and entirely the wrong thing into his and Aaron's proximity.

"Civil," he mouths back to her.

She looks just as unimpressed by that answer as she had the last time he'd offered it, and appears set to march on over and demand a more satisfactory one, but before she can make good on the threat that the determined squaring of her shoulders promises, Chas swoops in and sends her back to the kitchen to deal with the hypothetical lunch rush that's sure to ensue any second, what with the pub having all of four customers present.

Chas then takes Vic's place at the bar, and desultorily waves a cloth in the vague direction of a pint glass whilst treating Robert to one of the more poisonous glares in her baleful repertoire yet again.

"I think your mum's trying to set my head on fire with her eyes," he observes to Aaron in an undertone.

"Just ignore her," Aaron says without looking up from his magazine.

Robert chuckles. "That's your answer for everything, isn't it?"

Aaron's lips twitch a little at the corners; a Schrödinger's expression that's the beginnings of a frown and a smile simultaneously.

Ultimately, and disappointingly, he settles on a frown, and reminds Robert in a gruff tone to, "Keep reading."

But Robert returns his attention instead to Chas, who now has a companion in her scowling disapproval in the form of Marlon. A few minutes later, they're joined in turn by Paddy, who barrels in through the pub's front doors at what passes for high speed for him, his bald pate rubicund and gleaming from his exertions.

The three of them huddle together and hold a hushed conversation conducted in sibilant whispers. Given the number of darkly meaningful looks directed his way, they're discussing his deplorable act of sitting in Aaron's vicinity, how it represents fresh evidence of his unrepentantly nefarious nature, and the best strategies for rescuing Aaron from it, post-haste.

"Fucking hell," Aaron groans, the words accompanied by a sharp, jabbing spike in their bond. "I can't concentrate with them three here."

"You can't concentrate on _ignoring_ me," Robert asks, surprised that Aaron would admit to having to expend any effort at all to accomplish that particular task.

"On anything." Aaron gets to his feet, tucks his half-read magazine under his arm, and then drains the remainder of his beer in one long draught. "I'm going to get back to work. We'll try this again tomorrow, somewhere quieter.  
-

* * *

 _-  
Herbal remedy_  
 _Homeopathy_  
 _Prayer circle_  
 _Herbal remedy_  
 _Self-proclaimed spiritual expert with dubious credentials_

It's no wonder that Aaron's decided that their best bet is to simply will their bond out of existence, because Robert's been reading adverts, articles and testimonials for nearly three hours now, and hasn't seen one purported cure that seems even remotely credible.

Not that there are all that many of them, full stop, and even those companies trying to peddle overpriced, under-researched medicines usually lead in with an advisory that soulmates are a special, unique gift from [deity of choice], and the breaking of bonds should only be attempted in the direst of circumstances after every other avenue of reconciliation has been explored.

 _'Magic spell'_  
 _Self-proclaimed spiritual expert with dubious credentials_  
 _Pendant that looks like a badly mangled paperclip_

"'Bond-blocking amulet'," Vic reads aloud as she peers down at his phone screen. "Is that for you, Rob?"

"Not for £79.99, it isn't," Robert says. "And I seriously doubt it would do anything, either way."

Vic perches beside him on the arm of the sofa, and then leans into him, pressing her arm against his. "You want to get rid of the bond?"

Robert shrugs noncommittally. The bond's hardly the deep intertwining of heart, body and mind that thousands of years of recorded history would have him believe, but it's really nothing more or less than a mild irritant at present, and, left to his own devices, he could probably learn to just live with it as he has the slight, stinging twinge in his chest he now suffers from when he breathes a little too deep. As Aaron has taken against it so adamantly, though, the path of least resistance lies in the opposite direction, and he's equally happy to follow it that way.

"It's not really worth keeping," he says. "It's nothing like you'd expect."

"What is it like, then?"

"I can't really expl—"

"Don't you dare!" Vic cuts in, cuffing Robert lightly on the shoulder. "You used to hate it when Andy told you that."

"I really can't, though." Robert cautiously leans away from her just in case she decides to take another swing at him. "It hasn't made anything brighter or better, it hasn't made me complete – whatever that means – it's just... just a constant background hum. Like tinnitus, I guess, but inside my head instead of my ears."

"Oh." Vic's lips purse briefly in a disappointed moue. "That doesn't sound good."

"It's not," Robert says. "Though I suppose it might be different for people whose soulmates don't hate them."

"I'm sure they don't hate you," Vic says stoutly.

Robert pushes the left sleeve of his shirt back until the first three words of his mark are revealed, and then gestures towards them. "Exhibit A."

"Point taken." Vic lets out a deep sigh. "I'm sorry, Rob."

"It's okay," Robert says, giving her hand a quick, reassuring squeeze. "You know I think it's all a load of crap, anyway."


	2. Chapter 2

Today, the props are the same even if the venue is different: two pints and a copy of Robert's old friend, the _Courier_ , laid out on the coffee table in the pub's back room.

"You reckon this is going to be quieter?" Robert asks.

"Mum and Diane are both working, so it should be," Aaron says, motioning for him to take a seat on the sofa.

And today, Robert had thought ahead and brought a pen in order to do the sudoku and crossword and wring every last meagre drop of entertainment and distraction out of the paper that he can.

He gets two sips of beer in and five clues down before Chas bursts into the room, and loudly announces, "I'm going to make a brew. You fancy one, love?"

The offer is very distinctly and unequivocally directed solely towards Aaron, and when he refuses it with a shake of his head, it is not then extended towards Robert. For once, Chas' gaze glances straight over him as if he really has become one with the furniture, just as Vic had predicted he might.

She then proceeds to make the most showily overdramatic production out of preparing tea that Robert has ever borne witness to, the exaggerated motions of her hands accompanied by a cacophony of slamming cupboard doors and rattling cutlery. Every so often, she will pause in her excessively violent spoon stirring or tea bag mashing and peer distrustfully around the corner of the kitchenette, as though expecting to discover that Robert has taken advantage of the din _she's_ creating and used it as cover to launch himself bodily at her son. She never looks any more pleased when she sees that he hasn't, though.

Aaron's expression remains impassive under her scrutiny, but the bond rumbles like oncoming thunder.

Miraculously, the mug bears up under Chas' brutal mistreatment, and she takes a seat at the table with it in hand, then attempts to hold a conversation with Aaron.

At first, Aaron meets her questions about the minutiae of his morning with monosyllabic answers, but he quickly segues into shrugging, and thereafter completely motionless silence. Chas persists doggedly in the same vein for a while, but her enthusiasm for the venture is soon dashed against the brick wall of Aaron's disinterest, and she changes tack, regaling them instead with a long, drawn-out, and, above all, incredibly dull story about a very minor problem she and Diane had encountered with that day's food delivery.

There's only so much that can possibly be said about the accidental substitution of a bag of carrots for a sack of potatoes, however, and though Chas makes a valiant effort at eking out her thoughts on the matter for as long as possible, that well does ultimately run dry and she falters into silence, too.

She stares at Aaron. Aaron stares at his pint. Robert tries to think of a eleven letter word for 'despondent' that starts with a c, and the clock on the mantelpiece slowly marks out the passing of each dragging second with sonorous ticks that sound as loud as a drumbeat.

Eventually, Chas heaves out a rough sigh that's caught on the cusp of a growl, launches herself sinkwards to wash her mug as boisterously as she'd filled it, slams it down on the draining board, and then stalks, stiff-legged and heavy-footed, out of the room.

Aaron's back sags when she leaves, and the bond quietens down to its more usual power line hum. "Fucking hell," he says. "I thought she'd never—"

He's interrupted by the sudden arrival of Marlon, who stumbles through the still-open door with a sort of ungainly haste that's reminiscent of his being hurried on his way by a foot applied to his arse. Robert honestly wouldn't be surprised if he had been.

He stands in the middle of the room for a moment, looking even more awkward than usual and seemingly tongue-tied, given the soundless, fish-like gaping of his mouth.

Aaron scowls at him, but seems disinclined to say anything, so it falls to Robert to ask, "Can we help you?"

Marlon shakes his head. Nods it. Says, "I just needed to..."

What he needed to do with such urgency that he nearly tripped himself into a broken neck in the pursuit of it is, apparently, to study each and every one of the paintings and pictures on display in the room with the all the careful diligence of an art critic.

He boggles at each one as if he's never seen it in his life before, grimacing at some, frowning at others, until he reaches the photograph of Robert and his dad set on the dresser.

There, he offers Robert a crooked grin, and says, "Cute kid. Shame—"

"It didn't last," Robert finishes for him.

Marlon chuckles uneasily. "I take it you've heard that before, then?"

"Once or twice."

"Right." Marlon contemplates Bernice's photograph for a few seconds, and then looks longingly at the door. "That's all I... Okay. I should, you know..."

He scurries away, muttering something under his breath of which the only comprehensible word is 'pies'.

Turning towards Aaron, Robert asks, "What exactly did you tell your mum we were doing in here."

"Talking," Aaron says. "I told her that we weren't back together, that we were _never_ going to get back together" – ridiculously, hearing that stings, even though Robert wouldn't have expected him to say anything else – "but we just needed a bit of peace and quiet to sort some things out. Obviously she didn't believe me."

As if on cue, footsteps echo down the hallway again, but when they come to a halt, it's Diane rather than Chas that pokes her head through the doorway.

Robert sighs. "Not you too," he says.

"Not me too, what, pet?" Diane asks. "I only came back here to make a cup of tea." She glances between Robert and Aaron, her colour heightening slightly. "I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"

"No," Aaron says, springing up from the sofa in a rush of static and irritated energy. "We were just leaving."

Tugged along by that inclusive 'we', Robert trails him out into the hallway, pauses when he pauses at the foot of the stairs, and then follows his gaze upwards.

"We'd probably be less likely to be disturbed in your bedroom," Robert suggests, but is unsurprised when Aaron makes his barbed-wire-hacking-cat expression of utter disgust in response.

It's likely for the best. Robert definitely wouldn't be able to ignore Aaron easily there.

Aaron pushes on, through the back door and out into the car park. The sky is leaden, heavy with slate grey clouds and dusk-dark already. It's trying to snow, too; tiny, wet flakes drifting down that melt in the same instant they settle against Robert's skin. He shivers, and zips up his jacket. Aaron thrusts his hands deep into the pockets of his hoodie, bows his head and keeps walking.

Although he strides off down Main Street with a determined surety of tread which suggests he has a specific destination in mind, the restless roaming of his eyes towards every building they pass is indicative instead of a desperate search for some place that's less inauspiciously infested by their relatives in order to continue their attempts at tuning one another out.

Following his example, Robert also sets his mind to solving that particular conundrum.

He quickly dismisses both the cafe and David's shop, which are no better safeguarded against future Dingle incursions than the pub, and shortly thereafter Keeper's Cottage. Downstairs, they would vulnerable to interruption by Vic or Adam at any time, and upstairs there's only the box room, which, whilst it may be free of the same distracting associations as Aaron's bedroom, isn't really any more suitable. It's small enough as it is, and made smaller by the bags full of Robert's belongings crammed in there – because he's only staying there temporarily until he gets back on his feet again; unpacking would be a sign of defeat – so the only place for them to sit would be on his borrowed bed. Together, and Robert wouldn't be able to stop thinking about Aaron, then.

That leaves only outbuildings (also fraught with unhelpful memories), the bus stop or cricket pavilion (equally evocative, if of an entirely different time – Robert would only be a bottle of cider away from feeling as though he'd regressed to adolescence – and no doubt freezing besides), or the vast stretch of open countryside surrounding them, which doesn't exactly appeal. Robert isn't outdoorsy, he doesn't have the right shoes for it, and trudging up hill and down dale, getting sleeted on, isn't an idea he wants to risk planting in Aaron's mind.

He's about to suggest that they give it all up as a bad job for today, that he'll think it over some more, come up with somewhere more suitable for tomorrow, when Aaron stops abruptly in his tracks and announces, "The scrapyard."

Which doesn't sound like much of a solution to Robert, despite the note of triumph ringing clear in Aaron's voice. "Really?" he asks. "How's that going to be any better? What about Adam?"

"He's going to be out every day. Customer visits. And Jimmy and Nicola are going to be off somewhere" – he makes a vague gesture with his hand that implies he hadn't listened very closely to whatever explanation they'd given him concerning their whereabouts – "all week. It'll be perfect. Come on."

He sets off with great conviction again. Robert shrugs and trails after him, because although the portacabin may not be all that much warmer than either the bus stop or pavilion, it is at least in possession of a working kettle, which, on balance, does probably make it the best choice out of the slim pickings on offer.


	3. Chapter 3

The scrapyard is hardly free of memories itself, something which Robert only belatedly recalls when he and Aaron are wending their way around the picked-over corpses of cars and burnt-out kitchen appliances and Aaron suddenly flinches like he's been unceremoniously jabbed in an extremely delicate area by an invisible pin.

He flinches, then stops dead in his tracks, his eyes darting towards some metal shelving units on the left-hand side of the yard. Robert doesn't need to follow his gaze to know what has caught Aaron's attention.

The last time they were in the scrapyard together, they'd stood right there, on that very spot, and he'd spoken Aaron's words.

Now, Aaron runs his right hand over his left biceps as though maybe his mark has started to twinge in remembrance and he's trying to sooth away the sting of it, but then there had been no sign that he'd been affected in that way. Not one. Robert's recollection of that day is fragmentary at best, bullet-fractured, but he remembers their conversation with almost painful clarity.

He's run and rerun it in his mind over the past few weeks, looked at it from every conceivable angle, but come up empty every time.

Aaron had been hurt, of course, stunned and betrayed, stiff-backed and drawn taut with barely-leashed anger, but he hadn't reacted when Robert spoke his bond. He hadn't gasped, clutched at his arm, or staggered like Robert had staggered when the same thing had happened and it struck him like a sucker punch to the stomach.

It could be that Aaron had simply been able to hide it better, to breathe through the pain of it and keep talking as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.

He certainly seems to be feeling it now, though. His complexion has greyed and a fine sheen of sweat has sprung up on his brow. His fingers move restlessly, running back and forth, forth and back, along the faint ridges in the fabric of his sleeve that outline the edges of the bulky bandage wrapped around his arm.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Robert asks.

"It's fine," Aaron says, abruptly dropping his hand. He half-turns, looking back over his shoulder at Robert with narrowed eyes. " _I'm_ fine."

It sounds more like a challenge than reassurance, as if he's daring Robert to contradict him. And, in all honesty, Robert cannot. Aaron's still working, still coming here near every day, so obviously he's found some way to cope with the reminder in the normal course of things. It's probably just be the complicating factor of Robert's presence that's unnerved him.

"Fair enough," Robert says, shrugging, and willing to take him at his word. "But I'm not. It's _freezing_ out here." He waves an encouraging hand towards the portacabin. "So..."

Aaron stares at the hand and then the building indicated with an air of bafflement which suggests that he's struggling to comprehend the connection between the two.

Eventually, he gives his head a brisk shake as if to rattle his thoughts free from whatever, clearly unproductive, rut they've settled into, and says. "Yeah, right. Okay." He draws his shoulders back and his head up, his jaw setting into a stubborn jut. "Let's go."

He takes off at such a rapid clip that Robert has to break into a jog to keep up with him, and then when they reach the portacabin, scarcely waits for Robert to finish crossing its threshold before slamming the door closed behind them, heavily enough that the whole flimsy structure shakes from the force of it.

He leans against the wall next to the door for a moment afterwards, arms crossed over his chest, eyes closed, and breathing hard through his nose, and then it's Robert's turn to deal with an unwelcome memory, except that time it had been his back pressed to the wall, hemmed in, pinned down, and...

 _Nothing_ , he reminds himself firmly. That train of thought is hardly conducive to what Aaron wants to achieve here.

With some difficulty, he puts it out of his mind, but even so he can't quite dislodge one last, lingering question. He wonders if Aaron is thinking about the same day, the same moment. The tips of his ears _are_ tinged a faint pink, and the bond is sparking sharp and prickling in the pit of his stomach, with a particular pitch and frequency he has begun to believe is indicative of embarrassment on Aaron's part.

But such speculation is fruitless, too. He doesn't need to work out what the seemingly endless variations on the bond's constant, irritating baseline hum mean, and he shouldn't try. It's the exact opposite of ignoring it, when all Aaron is asking him to do is forget.

"Where do you want me?" he asks, forcing a smile that's so falsely broad it makes his cheeks ache, even though Aaron won't see to appreciate it.

Aaron waves desultorily towards a nearby chair, and then stomps across the cabin to throw himself down, heavy and graceless, onto the chair set behind his desk.

Robert seats himself with a great deal more consideration for his tailbone, crosses his legs neatly at the ankle, and then asks, "So, what now?"

Aaron scowls at him briefly. "Just... Just carry on with what you were doing at the pub."

For his own part, Aaron plucks a bulging folder from the haphazard stack of them piled on the desk, and is quickly absorbed by reading through the papers contained within. Or, at least, he does a good impression of being absorbed.

Robert unfolds the _Courier_ , retrieves the pen from his coat pocket, and once more devotes himself to the pressing matter of an eleven letter word for 'despondent' that starts with a c.

 **C _ _ S _ F_ _ L _ _**

 **C _ _ S _ F_ _ L _ _**

 **C _ _ S _ F_ _ L _ _**

 **C** **R ****E** **S** **T** **F** **A ****L** **L** **E ****N**

Conundrum solved, Robert adds in the necessary letters as best he can, but the tip of the pen punches through the paper in several spots with only the impractically yielding support of his knees behind it to lean on.

The rest of the clues prove unhelpfully easy to solve and he fills them in – with a much lighter hand – within minutes. The sudoku, too, is far too easy to be of any use.

He then diligently reads every word of every article, but before he's forced in desperation to read every word of every advert thereafter, he risks looking up to check on how Aaron is faring.

Although Aaron has a document clutched tight between his hands, he's not reading it. He's staring off into the middle distance and his colour is high again, something which Robert has only a split second to notice before Aaron tilts his head towards him, brow furrowing pensively.

The bond flares bright when their eyes meet, but only momentarily before Aaron drops his gaze and his frown towards the paper in his hands. "Don't," he says gruffly.

And so Robert doesn't. He studies the adverts with a careful eye until he finds himself developing a sudden and almost overwhelming craving for artisan bread as a consequence and decides that he's been lulled into a far too susceptible a state of mind to risk continuing.

Nonetheless, he still feels compelled to look up some of the local farm shops on his phone afterwards, and reads about organic flour and locally-sourced beef whilst he listens to Aaron huff and sigh and then finally say, "I think that's enough for today."

He sounds impossibly weary. Robert checks the time: thirty-seven minutes since they arrived here. It feels like three times as long, and he can't fault Aaron for being exhausted by it. It's amazing how tiring doing nothing can be when you're forced into being idle.

Robert's own muscles feel heavy, bunched tight and aching from sitting still in the same position for too long, and his eyes and throat are both stingingly dry. Stretching relieves the first problem, rubbing his knuckles against his eyes, the second, but he can't bring himself to do anything about the last.

The kettle is right there, but he can't bring himself to ask Aaron to make a brew or offer to do so himself, because Aaron has drawn in on himself, shoulders rounded and head drooping low; every inch of him closed off, and every inch of him clearly telegraphing that he doesn't want to be noticed, never mind approached. He's rubbing at his arm again, too, and his fingers are shaking, ever so slightly.

Although it's equally clear that he doesn't want to talk, Robert has to ask. He has to _know_. "Are you... Do you want to try this again some time?"

Aaron's resolute nod is surprising, and his answer even more so. "Tomorrow," he says.

Robert can't understand his conviction, because the bond is still buzzing in exactly the same way as it had beforehand – it hasn't dimmed once, never mind dropped to a level that he could even imagine being able to disregard it entirely – and the entire exercise has obviously unsettled Aaron.

But perhaps that discomfort has only served to make him even more determined to press on, rid themselves of this thing once and for all. It's not like they have any other options but to just grit their teeth, endure, and hope against hope that it'll somehow work itself out in the end.

"Tomorrow," Robert agrees, getting to his feet.

He leaves without looking back.


	4. Chapter 4

That evening, Robert is informed in another blunt and dictatorial text that, breaking the tenuous habit of the last couple of days, he is expected to put in an appearance at eight o'clock the next day to resume their attempt at mutual cold-shouldering.

Distantly, he's aware that he should be annoyed that, once again, Aaron had assumed – and he'd be right, but that's beside the point – that he has nothing better to do with his morning than waste it.

Mostly, though, he's just resigned to the knowledge that his time likely isn't going to be truly his own again until this _thing_ between them is dead and buried.

He sets his alarm for seven.

At seven fifty-five, when the sun is half-risen and the air is still sharp with the night's chill, he picks his way through the frost-rimed scrapyard. Aaron meets him at the portacabin's door, and although he doesn't look surprised to see Robert there, the shocked lurch of Robert's heart is a weak echoing sensation, and not his own.

"Why the change of plan?" Robert asks as Aaron directs him to take the seat he had used the previous day.

Aaron shrugs before settling himself behind his desk again. "I thought an hour's probably not long enough. We should see if we can manage a full day."

 _A full day?_ Robert's doubly glad now that he decided against relying upon the _Courier_ 's tedious pages for company and brought his laptop.

"Shouldn't be a problem," he says, nodding towards it, "I can get on with some work."

"Yeah," Aaron says, breathing out the word like a sigh. "Yeah, me too."

That said, he reaches for the account book, even though it's completely up-to-date and perfectly balanced. Robert knows that for a fact, as he'd been through it with a fine tooth comb only a couple of days beforehand.

He soon appears immersed in it, regardless, and Robert tries to do the same, but finds himself staring blankly at his laptop screen, instead. Because he doesn't have any work to do, not really. No matter how often he might attempt to persuade himself otherwise, there's nothing beyond the few administrative tasks he sporadically manages to scrape up at the scrapyard.

In desperation, he ends up sifting through the relics of his old life, poring over brochures for threshers, tractors, and cultivators with a strange sort of nostalgia and far more interest than he'd ever managed to summon up when they actually _were_ his job.

Occasionally, Aaron will shift in his chair, clear his throat, or put down his pen with just a little too much force, and attract Robert's attention towards him, but it's only for a second, Aaron doesn't acknowledge his notice, and the bond barely blips between them.

For the first time since it formed, it's almost pleasant. It fades away to a faint murmur, just as it did when they were trying to avoid one another and kept the entire length of the village between them, and its pulses are softened, reminiscent of a heartbeat. It's nothing more than a reminder that Aaron's there, that he's close, and Robert feels calmed by it in a way that he can neither describe nor explain to his satisfaction.

Aaron's voice, then, is a strident, unwelcome intrusion when he suddenly says, "Time for dinner."

Robert glances at the clock on his screen, and it unnerves him. Nearly twelve o'clock. He hadn't been aware of the hours slipping away.

"Right," he says, taking a deep breath to centre himself. To wake himself up, because he must have slipped into some kind of trance unaware. It's the only possible explanation. "Okay, so do you want to go to the pub, or—"

"I brought sandwiches," Aaron says, producing a Tupperware box from one of the desk's drawers. "Here" – he holds out a slim package, so densely wrapped in cling film that Robert can't make out what it contains – "I made one for you, an' all."

A crushed packet of Quavers follows, then a can of Coke, all of which Aaron passes to Robert with careful delicacy, ensuring that not even the very tips of their fingers have chance to brush together in the hand off.

The sandwich is constructed from cheap white sliced bread and anaemic-looking ham, far too heavy on the margarine and light on the mustard, considering the rest of its ingredients, but Robert's hunger surges into fierce, unexpected life with his first, tentative bite, and he devours the rest greedily, closely followed by the entire packet of Quaver-shards.

Aaron eats at a more measured pace, gazing at nothing through the window beside Robert all the while.

Afterwards, he goes into the yard and begins smashing things with grim-faced absorption. Robert watches him from the portacabin steps until the tip of his nose and his hands go numb, then retreats to his combine harvesters, balers, and mulching machines once more.

The bond's heartbeat is more pronounced, quickened with exertion, but no less soothing for it.  
-

* * *

-  
The next day, Robert picks up his own lunch from the cafe and brings it to the scrapyard along with a book: _A Game of Thrones_ , which he'd bought back when the show first started, but somehow never found the time to start reading before now.

The nod Aaron gives when he sees it is approving. "Should keep you busy," he says.

Truthfully, Robert doesn't really expect it to, given that he knows how the story goes already, but he's soon engrossed, and, just as quickly, the bond recedes to yesterday's muted state.

This time, he doesn't follow Aaron when he wanders outside, and he eats his lunch alone.  
-

* * *

-  
The subsequent two days follow the same path, but something shifts on the third.

The bond begins sputtering like a badly-tuned engine; purring along one minute, cutting out completely the next. And when it cuts out, there's _nothing_ for a moment, only silence in Robert's head and stillness in his chest, where the bond once hummed.

His guts twist painfully tight, in shock and something akin to fear, and he desperately reaches out with every thought in his head and every ounce of concentration, grasping to regain the feel of it.

"For fuck's sake," Aaron growls, slamming his hands down onto the top of the desk in front of him. "Why the hell did you do that, Robert? It was... It was nearly _gone_."

"I don't know," Robert has to admit. He'd acted purely on instinct, without pause to consider the ramifications, and, besides, he's not entirely sure _what_ he'd done, anyway.

But he must have done _something_ , because the bond is back, full-force, and jarringly so, blistering with the heat of Aaron's anger.

Aaron sighs, massaging his temples with the heels of his palms. "It's what we both want, isn't it? To break this fucking thing?"

For his own part, Robert still isn't certain about that. For all that it's nothing like he expected – or, as a child, maybe once secretly hoped – he's grown used to the noisy imposition of the bond, and had felt oddly bereft in those few seconds without it. Nevertheless, the prospect of his head and body being solely his own again is appealing in its own way, and despite what his _instinct_ may believe to the contrary, he won't be missing much when the bond's gone.

He repeats this to himself several times, with ever-increasing forcefulness, and then says, "Yes."

"Good." Aaron's lips curl upwards slightly, edging close to a smile. "So, next time that happens, don't fight it. Just go along with it."

Robert nods acquiescence, returns to his reading, and when the bond begins to falter again, he does just that. He pushes it to the periphery of his mind, and tamps down his panic when it gradually trickles away.

It soon blossoms into life again, but only faintly, and every subsequent time it recedes, it takes even longer to return.  
-

* * *

-  
At eleven twenty-seven on the fourth day, when Robert is halfway through the fifth chapter of _A Clash of Kings_ , Aaron starts to make himself a cup of tea, and Robert doesn't even realise he's got up from his desk until he hears the kettle bubble and hiss as it comes to the boil.

He hadn't heard Aaron moving, never mind felt it.

Rain is pelting hard against the roof of the portacabin, sluicing in swift rivulets down the windows, and the air smells of mould and an acrid hint of Aaron's cheap aftershave, but beyond that, there's nothing; no awareness of anything outside himself save for that perceived by his normal, prosaic senses.

He doesn't fight the loss, just breathes steadily into the silence.

"You can't feel it anymore either, right?" Aaron says, sounding hopeful.

Robert nods, because he doesn't trust himself to speak quite yet. He fears he may sound disappointed, even though he hasn't lost anything that's worth missing.

Aaron meets his eyes with a deliberation he hasn't shown for weeks, and then offers Robert a wide, true smile of the sort he hasn't seen for far longer than that.

He puts his mug down next to the kettle, wipes his palms against his jeans, and then, with a nervous, hesitant step, walks towards Robert. When he's a little less than a foot away, he tentatively holds out a hand for Robert to shake.

Robert's heart is pounding, his chest tight, but he forces his arm up, takes a loose grip of Aaron's hand, and...

And there's nothing. Nothing but skin, blood-warm and slightly damp. Just a normal handshake: job done, thank you, but don't let the door hit you on the arse on the way out.

Aaron's grin broadens, radiating relief. "Thank fuck for that," he says.

"Yeah," Robert agrees, even though he doesn't feel happy, or relieved, or really anything he can easily put a name to. Oddly hollow is the best way he would describe it, if pressed, but Aaron drops his hand quickly, turns away, and doesn't ask. "Thank fuck."  
-

* * *

-  
 _Now this fic is complete, there will be one more story left in this series: **Beyond the Journey**._


End file.
